


Red

by tangerinabina_de_archanea



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mild Blood, Mild spoilers for Bernie's supports with those three
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 10:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20740880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangerinabina_de_archanea/pseuds/tangerinabina_de_archanea
Summary: Bernadetta wishes she could be loud, but she doesn’t remember how to scream, so she stays quiet and paints her canvas with bright red, a screaming red that must be heard.





	Red

“I’m gonna haunt you to your grave. And even when you’re under, when you’re buried deep, I won’t let you sleep.”

Bernadetta wishes she could be loud, but she doesn’t remember how to scream, so she stays quiet and paints her canvas with bright red, a screaming red that must be heard.

She’s always admired Ferdinand’s confidence, how he can scream his own name on the battlefield with no hesitation. She wants to scream her own name, but all she can say is “Bernie’s no good.” She feels like a wheel stuck in a rut, spewing mud everywhere as she tries to move forward but only digs herself deeper. 

She paints herself with red when her arrows miss and she’s left with no choice but to face her enemy headon. She thinks that maybe in those moments she could scream, but no sound comes out as she stares at the blood on her hands and the corpse at her feet.

Sometimes she dreams of a knife that she uses to cut the ropes tying her to chair, and she sees the blood on her hands again as there is a gurgling and a final exhalation, and she falls to cold stone floors of her home and holds her head in her horribly warm hands, but no sound comes out. She can’t even scream then. 

She wakes up holding her pillow and wants to scream into it, both frustrated by the fact that it was only a dream and horrified by the fact that she would ever even consider such a thing. She can’t sleep, so she paints by the moonlight, but nothing looks quite right and her head falls against the canvas, smearing the garish colors into each other and onto herself.

Petra says they are friends and Bernadetta nearly cries, because she doesn’t understand how it could be so easy to just say that, nor how it could be so easy to not fear other people. Petra is quiet, but not so at the same time. Her silence is strong, the assured silence of a hunter. Bernadetta reconsiders learning how to scream, for she realizes that even if she screams, it will only be the terrified whimpers of prey.

She tries to disappear when she has to leave her room, but people keep seeing her, no matter where she hides. She tries to retreat, but still they bang on her door, asking her to come out, and she wants to scream “Go away!” but she doesn’t know how. 

Dorothea reaches out to her, and all she can see is red, red, red, and she runs away. The red is Dorothea’s dress, but she can’t help but think it’s her blood. Even if she never saw what happened to that boy so long ago, she can imagine it, and now she sees the same with Dorothea. She dreams again of blood, but it is not on her hands, and she wakes up in tears, and wants to scream for Dorothea to make sure she’s alright.

Linhardt tells her to use a softer shade of crimson. She nods and acquiesces, because that is what she was taught to do, and she nearly breaks her brush as she makes the paint be quiet and soft, and not the bright red she wanted. Linhardt tells her that she had been right, in the end, and that the bright red was better. The screaming red. She nearly breaks her brush again.

“I’m gonna haunt you to your grave. And even when you’re under, when you’re buried deep, I won’t let you sleep.”

Bernadetta nearly says that, but she can’t find it in her. Her voice trails off.

“I’m gonna haunt you…”

She wishes she could be louder, she wishes she could scream, but she doesn’t know how. Her hands are red.


End file.
